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Whats In A Name?by
Cynthia VanRooy

Whats in a name? Everything! Names have magic. Thats
why we spend so much time and angst coming up with just
the right ones for our characters.

Remember the first time your
significant other spoke your name out loud? How
wonderful, how intimate it sounded? Imagine your hero or
heroine using the others name for the first time,
saying it with a smile, muttering it in irritation,
forcing it from behind clenched teeth in anger, or
whispering it while making love. In every case the name
will have more impact if youve chosen well.

There are a number of factors to
take into consideration. For Silhouette Desire author and
Holt Medallion winner Susan Crosby, the sound and rhythm
of the name are paramount. Her favorite hero name ever,
Gabriel Alejandro de la Hoya y Marquez, is from her book His
Seductive Revenge. Read the name out loud to yourself
and youll hear the rhythm. The heroine in this book
is Christina Chandler, a name thats still rhythmic
but a counterpoint to his more elaborate one.

This leads into another concernonly
one unusual or exotic main character name per book.
Otherwise the story has too much of a made up, author-at-work
feel. I have a friend named Theodora, a name I love and
will use one day. You can bet, though, that the hero of
that book will be named Tom, Dick, or Harry, or the
current equivalent.

And speaking of currentNY
Times best-selling author and two-time Rita winner
Suzanne Brockmann has a trick for insuring her characters
names are appropriate to their era. She searches websites
that have lists of the most popular names for boys and
girls born in any given year. If she has a secondary
character whos seventy-five years old, she checks
to see what was popular the year they were born.

Giving a character a name congruent
with their times makes them more genuine for the reader.
Its like handing the reader a quick snapshot of
your character. Ensure you dont give a character a
name that wasnt even in existence when they were
born, i.e. dont name an historical heroine
something like Tammy, Bambi, or Tiffany. Extreme
examples, to be sure, but always check to guarantee you
dont unsuspectingly use a name of too-recent origin.

Youve probably read not to
have two characters in a book with names that begin with
the same letter because it gets confusing for the reader.
The same rule applies to names that may be spelled
differently but sound the same like Jack and Zack, Mary
and Terry, Sam and Tammy.

And if you want the reader to take
your characters seriously, avoid alliteration. Mandy
Mathers and Tim Thomas may be wonderful characters for a
childrens story, but a little too cute for adult
reading. Likewise, be sure that the combination of your
hero and heroines names dont sound silly
togetherJack and Jill, Pat and Mike, Mark and Cleo
(Marc Anthony and Cleopatra for those not historically
inclined ), etc. Doing it on purpose as a plot point is
fine. Just dont let your choices be an unfortunate
accident. Have one or more of the characters comment on
the combination of names to cement in the readers
mind that the combination was by design.

Be aware of which names have an
upper-class, old-money history and which sound like an up-by-his-bootstraps
working man. In historical England no blue-blooded family
would have named a daughter Molly, a working class name.
On a subconscious level were aware of these
distinctions, and your characters wont ring true if
you give them names not suited to their class.

Along these lines, USA Today best-selling
author Christie Ridgway advises that if a character isnt
gelling for you, be open to change. Maybe they just need
a new name. Her character, Jacob Cargill, started out a
banker. When she decided to give him the more colorful
career of monster truck driver, suddenly his name wasnt
working. She changed it to Nash Cargill and voilatruck
driver.

A name can also provide a clue to a
characters place of birth. Beau (recently shortened
to Bo) is a Son of the South. Also southern are double
female namesBonny Jean, Amanda Marie, Hazel Doris (my
very southern cousin),

What do Alan Francisco, Cosmo
Richter, and Tom Paoletti have in common? They are all
heroes from Suzanne Brockmanns books. They have a
guy-next-door kind of sound. Suzanne picks a first name
she likes and then reads phone books for ethnic last
names. Because the United States is made up of such a
variety of ethnicities, she likes her characters to
reflect this broad range. She believes this gives a more
believable feel to the book than sticking with the usual
standard Anglo-Saxon hero and heroine names. Judging by
her book sales, a lot of readers agree with her.

Shorter, one-syllable names have a
more macho, masculine feelShane, Matt, Jake,
John. Two or more syllables to a name are more feminine
than one, but both these suggestions are generalizations.
There are always exceptions. To reach your reader on a
subliminal level, give your hero a name that uses the
hard-consonant soundsd ,g, k, t. Names like Kurt,
Grant, Max, Dirk. Reserve the softer sounds for your
heroineGina, Sherri, Jennifer, Suzy.

Novelist and writing instructor
Marian Jones advises against using names that end in
s. In the possessive (ss), the double
s hisses on the page.

The most important point about
character names is to make them something the reader
can pronounce. Theyll be calling this character
by name in their heads as they read and theyll hear
the character addressed by other characters. Every time
the unpronounceable name comes up, the reader will halt,
then stumble over it trying to figure out again how to
pronounce it. They may just give up and quit reading.
Even if they finish your story, they wont be
inclined to rave about it to a friend if theyre
afraid of mispronouncing the main characters name.
You can still go for exotic, alien, or prehistoric as
long as you choose something the reader can work with
phonetically.

When you come across a name that
strikes you, save it! Almost every writer I know
maintains a notebook of potential character names. The
hero of my book Everything That Glitters is named
Greydon Cantrell, something I felt reflected his Old
South, old-money background. I discovered Greydon on the
nametag of a checker at our local grocery store and made
note of it. I knew Id want to use it one day.

If you havent already started
a name notebook, do. Then when youre racking your
brain for the perfect name for your nuclear physicist,
elementary school teacher, virtual assistant, advertising
executive heroine youll only need to page through
the assortment of names youve already collected to
find one.

Take your time naming your
creations. Choosing a name that sings on the page for you
will go a long way toward growing your characters.
Shakespeare may have believed that a rose by any other
name would smell as sweet, but romance writers know
better!

Now that you've written the book,
does the hardest part seem to be getting an editor to
read it? Let award-winning romance author Cynthia
VanRooy, published in both print and electronic formats,
teach you in her information-packed ebooklet, The Secrets
to Query Letters That Work, how seasoned professionals,
even unagented ones, circumvent the slush pile and get
their fiction in front of the decision makers. For more
information click on http://www.cynthiavanrooy.com.

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